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Report: 38% of donations solicited by professional fundraisers reach charities

Charities using professional fundraisers to raise money in Michigan received only 38 cents of every dollar raised through those campaigns last year, according to a report this week from Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.

That reflects a 3 percent increase in the amount going to charities when compared to 2012, according to the state’s second annual Professional Fundraising Charitable Solicitation Report. But it’s still not enough, the AG said in a news release.

“I will continue promoting this transparency in hopes consumers and charities will be able to do more to help their intended causes,” Schuette said.

The report, available at michigan.gov, documents the amount raised by 95 professional fundraisers licensed to raise money in Michigan.

The report looks at the difference between the amount of money raised by the professional fundraiser and the professional fundraisers’ fees.

According to Michigan’s Charitable Organizations and Solicitations Act, a professional fundraiser is a person who raises funds for or on behalf of a nonprofit. In Michigan, by law those folks must be licensed and bonded.

This includes consultants who help plan or manage campaigns, people/entities who raise money by phone or mail, employees paid on the basis of the amount of funds they raise and anyone other than a charitable organization who owns or operates a clothing donation box if those donations are said to be donated to a charity.

The money raised could be for Michigan charities or out-of-state charities using a professional fundraiser to solicit donations here.

But the data in the report is not limited to fundraising conducted in Michigan, said Joy Yearout, the AG’s communications director, in an email. The data in the report can include the results of national campaigns raising money in Michigan as well as other parts of the country.

The report presents the same data in three different ways: by charity, by professional fundraiser and by percentage of donation that reached the charity.

The more successful and efficient a charity’s fundraising campaigns are, the more revenue it then has available to dedicate to its program services and other expenses, Yearout said.